Institutional features of congressional decisions: The fight to prohibit smoking on airlines

A pervasive theme of the congressional politics literature is that the committee system is fundamental in determining the policy status quo. Such an assertion hinges crucially upon committees controlling their jurisdictions; congressional delegation is undermined if a committee can assert authority over any issue domain at any time. Yet, representatives may possess an incentive to support a policy proposal that would change the status quo, even if it entails disregarding procedures. Indeed, standard conceptualizations of how members of Congress make their voting choices assume that only the benefits and costs associated with a policy matter, and they do not consider institutional factors such as whether a bill emerged from the correct committee.This analysis examines whether representatives will sacrifice policy interests to preserve institutional features of the legislature. The effort in 1987 to curb smoking on airplanes — which became embroiled in a difficult-to-resolve jurisdictional dispute — serves as a vehicle to analyze how sensitive members are to such features. The results demonstrate that a sizable number put aside their [generally moderate] policy preferences and voted against limits on smoking for institutional reasons. These findings have important implications both for specifying the determinants of policy change and for understanding institutional stability.     

Privatization and cost reduction

In this paper several examples of government contracts with private firms are examined to see how experience conforms to a principal-agent model of cost minimization via competitive bidding and how important are the many qualifications to the model. Fifteen cases of local government contracting are examined.The course of private contracting is not always smooth — as judged by the many contract disruptions observed and by the number of cities that believe they are no longer saving money by contracting and those which have resumed public production. It also seems to be the case, however, that competition generally reduces initial costs, that in many cases cost savings persist, that it is possible to stimulte competition, and that providing for continual interaction, as contrasted with simply monitoring performance, can prevent disruption.     

Information and party voting in “semipartisan” judicial elections

Research on the relationship between the quantity of information that voters possess and their party voting behavior in partisan elections has produced mixed and confusing empirical results. In an effort to provide a broader perspective, this paper explores that relationship in nonpartisan elections contested by candidates of opposing parties. The paper analyzes survey data on two 1984 contests for seats on the Ohio Supreme Court, using the presidential race for comparison. Despite a highly partisan campaign, party defections by voters were far more common in the supreme court races than in the presidential race, reflecting the importance of party designations on the ballot as a source of information on candidates' party affiliations. At the individual level, levels of information had differing effects in the two supreme court races and for Democratic and Republican voters; this finding suggests that the impact of imformation levels on voters' choices is conditioned by the content of information in particular campaigns.     

Ideological sources of American movements

He is retired and lives in Hawaii.     

The Congress and fiscal policy

Although the common belief is that the Congress has paid little attention to fiscal policy, the same kinds of political-economic models which have been used to explain presidential budgetary policy may be used equally well to explain congressional budgetary behavior. The Congress' fiscal policy appears to be systematically sensitive to both economic and political factors. Changes in the unemployment rate have a major impact on congressional budgetary policy. As for political factors, the President's lead is followed most closely on revenue proposals and not at all on the expenditure side. The electoral cycle, in particular the off-year congressional election year, is also important; inducing larger deficits and smaller increases in revenues. When the influences on congressional fiscal behavior are compared with those on presidential behavior, the sources of the generally more expansionary congressional fiscal policy are identified. Congressional budget deficits increase in response to increased rates of unemployment but are insensitive to increases in inflation. In contrast, presidential budgets are heavily influenced by inflation and the growth in personal income — increases in each resulting in smaller proposed deficits — as well as by unemployment rates. In years in which both unemployment and inflation are increasing, the combination of the two (assuming a one percentage point change in each) implies an increase in the congressional deficit of $6.7 billion but a decrease in the president's proposed deficit of $2.5 billion. The implications of this study are a challenge to the literature which makes the President the central actor in macro-economic policy.     

An improved method for post-PCR purification for mtDNA sequence analysis

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of forensic samples typically is performed when the quantity and quality of DNA are insufficient for nuclear DNA analysis or when maternal relatives may be the only reference source. Many of the steps required in the analytical process are both lengthy and labor intensive. Therefore, improvements in the process that reduce labor without compromising the quality of the data are desirable. The current procedure requires purification of the amplicons by centrifugal filtration after PCR and prior to cycle sequencing. Because this method requires several manipulations to perform, alternate cleanup procedures were investigated. These include the use of 1) Qiagen QlAquick PCR Purification columns, 2) Concert Rapid PCR Purification columns, and 3) ExoSAP-IT reagent. When the yield of purified amplicons, quality of the sequence profile, and ease of assay were evaluated, the use of ExoSAP-IT reagent for post-amplification purification was chosen to replace the filtration method.